Read this on galpod.com. When I was about eight or nine, I remember hiking with my dad. The sun was strong that day. The desert felt breathless, the colours of the trees and the sky muted by the dust. We met no animals on the hike, which was odd as we usually saw at least a spiny-tailed lizard slipping by, or a couple of ibex up on the ridge. That day was strangely devoid of life, which made me think we should probably head back. Hiking was a time for stories. That day, my da

Read this on galpod.com. I just read a book in Hebrew called "Always on Time" (rough translation). It's not a fantastic book, it's rather tedious at times, although the author writes pain so delicately it breaks my heart. The story is about Netta, an Israeli who lives and loves a man in Japan in the 1990s. We get to read her point of view as well as that of her mother, and also letters from her grandfather (on her mother's side). This book got me thinking about families and t

Read this on galpod.com. The other night someone asked me why I call my partner "partner" rather than "husband". I've been asked a few times, but this time it was at the writers' group, and that caught me a bit off guard. It made me think about words, as usual. So this is partly a #WordTrail, really. The word husband comes from husbandry, which is the craft of tending herds of cattle and sheep. In the olden days, this made sense because a woman was her husband's property in m

Read this on galpod.com. I started reading Atomic Habits by James Clear. It's fascinating so far. Book review on Brené Brown's The Gifts of Imperfection is forthcoming, promise. In the meantime, in the book, James mentions that "the word identity was originally derived from the Latin words essentitas, which means being, and identidim, which means repeatedly." (p. 36 according to my kindle which could be anything really). He cites the American Heritage Dictionary, which indeed

Read this on galpod.com. Right. It's been a long summer holiday. But today the kids are back in school which means now I have time to do all the things I said I'd do all summer. Only, like always, I said I'd do too many things "after the holidays". I started nice and easy with an hour of writing (I'm working on a short story I'm actually kind of excited about). Same with the blog: I'll leave the more philosophical posts to later on when I get back into the groove. So for now,

Read this on galpod.com. I have no time for a real post today. Last week has been crazy, and this one is shaping up to be quite similar. I always manage to forget what the last two weeks before a school break look like. BUT I started a "Word of the day" tweet on my twitter. Every day I'll tweet the Merriam-Webster's word of the day and use it in a sentence with a little bit around it to make for a fun little tidbit. I don't want to call it a story, but it's a fragment of a st

Read this on galpod.com. Hurray! I love random word trails! OK, this trail began a long time ago. There's a group called Glimpse, and I first heard of them when suddenly all the ads in our local tube station became kittens. So, I joined Glimpse (it's a great group of people I've never met), and the next project is about attention. Particularly, how to get our attention back from all the dings and beeps and notifications that continuously assail it. In the project brief, they

Read this on galpod.com. I love words. Specifically, I love the way that the meaning of a word can change over time and in different contexts. I find myself thinking of the origins and meanings of English words quite often. Because my first language is not English (it's Hebrew, in case you're wondering), I sometimes make connections that native English speakers may have made when they were children. Today I want to take you on two such word trails. They are not entirely unrel

Read this post on galpod.com. Hello! I'm experimenting with blogging every day. Because I'm very new to this, I need your help. Please take a minute to drop me a line and let me know what you think. I will post stories, thoughts, and possibly recipes (if I'm having an off day). Here's the post for today. I've volunteered in different capacities since I can remember. I'm not going to write a grocery list here, that's not the point. I do not volunteer so that people would tell

Hello! I'm experimenting with blogging every day. Because I'm very new to this, I need your help. Please take a minute to drop me a line and let me know what you think. I will post stories, thoughts, and possibly recipes (if I'm having an off day). Here's the post for today. I'm a sucker for words. English is my second language, so I think I may give myself more permission than native speakers to ask what a word means, even if I'm only asking my dictionary app. But I also lov